


Cursebreaking Hamunaptra

by ZenzaoDLP



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Mummy (1999)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Fantasy, Gen, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 17:58:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3497600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZenzaoDLP/pseuds/ZenzaoDLP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She walked into his office with a map and a plea for help, out of options to turn to and desperately short on knowledge. How could he say no? A Bill Weasley versus the Mummy challenge fic in progress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Who, what, why, where?

Dark Lord Publishing studios _proudly presents, a_ Fight Club Challenge _by director_ Zenzao _, with executive producer_ Peace _......_

 

  
_**Cursebreaking Hamunaptra**_  
  Act I - Who, what, why, where?

  
  
The chair creaked like a rusted faucet as he leaned back and stifled a yawn behind his left hand.  
  
A pair of matching thumps followed as it settled to the cold floor again, and he dug at his eyes with the heels of each palm until his vision felt fuzzy enough to convince him he was indeed hallucinating. One of the goblins - Igh’ruhk, most likely - had finally spiked his firewhiskey. It was the only answer that made sense; the hedgewitch before him, barely more than a squib, could not possibly be real.  
  
Yet there she sat prim as a rose, back ramrod straight, brows set in determination and button nose scrunched, fingers faintly twitching as if eager to swat at something.  
  
The song on the wireless buzzed into another strange ballad that would have driven his mum sparse, something vaguely Germanic in its roots this time, and he pushed back from the table to stand up, walk over, and fiddle with the tuner idly in distraction - give him irate hobs, incensed veelas, and would-be dark enchanters over the uninformed, fresh-faced inquisitors and treasure seekers like her nine times out of ten.

He could always floo-call on his younger brother Charlie and send a Norwegian Ridgeback to handle the difficult issues. A faint, toothy grin spread across his lips in memory of his going-away celebration and subsequent divorce from his ex-wife.  
  
But this?  
  
Bill’s grin dissolved as he reached up to rub at the back of his neck where a knot the size of a galleon was forming, brushing the dragontooth earring dangling from his right earlobe, and he blew out his breath in a rush.  
  
"Look, ma'am," he finally responded. He shut off the buzzing device and turned around to face her, unable to miss the change in her now standing stance that he knew all too well - dear Fleur tended to assume the same whenever she felt particularly stubborn, arms crossed just beneath the bust, thunderous scowl predicting the weather ahead. He relaxed just a little with the knowledge that _this_ woman at least couldn't chuck a raging fireball at his groin.  
  
In the momentary lull between casual observation and continuing, however, she snatched the prerogative away from him.  
  
"Now see here, Mr. Weasley, I will not be 'looked’ into anything! The rude garden gnomes in the lobby directed me to your office specifically, and with rather more bitterness than I think the occasion warranted! I have tried several other locations throughout this Wizarding Britain to little avail, and I have braved worse than their scowls to do it!"  
  
Bill winched at her misspoken term, perfectly understanding of why she had arrived on his doorstep. " _Goblins_ ," he intruded in a fierce whisper over her tirade of self-righteous indignation.  
  
She blinked like an owl blinded by a sudden flash of light and drew back slightly. "I beg your pardon?  
  
“The host of Gringotts where we stand are Goblins. Gnomes are scruffy imps that like to hole up in old boots and terrorize gardens throughout the British Isles.” Before she could utter anything else likely to get him killed, he added, "With all due respect, ma'am, I'm a curse breaker. I don't do treasure hunts in the middle of the Egyptian desert, or the African Sahara, or the Gobi or any of the other famous searing sands, be they yellow, gray, red, or white. Gringotts has a wonderful search team you can hire to locate any lost tombs, and I recommend the Egyptian branch highly. I can floo them myself to save you the difficulty of departure and transcontinental flight."  
  
The younger woman regained her temerity with a huff. “As I have tried to no avail long before coming here!” She drew the faded parchment from her purse anew and waved it at him like a ruler. “No one in the magical community is interested in this map, Mr. Weasley, and I can hardly go to parliament with it! They laughed uproariously at the notion of Hamunaptra and sent me on my merry way!”  
  
Her expression wavered just a moment as her voice quieted, glancing toward the door of his office. “Ever since I have felt a deep unease. I fear I am being followed.”  
  
Bill knew what was coming before the words even spilled from her mouth like a broken treasure urn dumping its shiny goods. He exhaled and slumped down to his seat.  
  
“Gringotts is the last location I expect I may find answers to this inquiry! If I must hire goblins-” her voice cracked for a moment over the term, as if not quite able to accept that she had uttered it seriously, “-then I will do so. I trust that they also offer a reasonable security force?”  
  
_Merlin’s balls_ , he swore to himself, taking in the vulnerable expression she had transitioned into like a master metamorphmagus. _You never could resist the doe-eyed ones. Even Fleur in her downtime, those little glimpses of flaw beneath the hard exterior._  
  
He sat upright, drumming the fingers of his left hand out of rhythm along the edge of his desk. Gradually a beat, a tune, began to echo as he keyed in the algorithm securing his secrets from prying eyes and prying hands. The hedgewitch watched him in some fascination. Like a snake charmer at work, lines of runes came to life, slithering this way and that, untangling, unknotting, freeing up a path amidst the pattern. His right hand slipped in between gaps to pry open a drawer here, a drawer there. He fished out an assortment of tiny leathery pouches of no discernible difference and shut the desk tight. When he was done his fingers slowed, a different ballad tapping out, and the runes stirred back toward their complex inner-outer dance.  
  
A bead of sweat rolled down his cheek as he smiled at her with that toothy grin again. “Come on, Miss Carnahan. Let’s find out where that map of yours will take us after all.” All three pouches vanished into his rugged jeans pockets as he swept to his feet with surprising vigor. “We’ll find it in forty days and forty nights, or the expedition costs are on Gringotts, sure as the ink is red on the contract ahead.”

**...end of Act I.**


	2. Contract of Blood

Dark Lord Publishing studios _proudly presents, a continued_ Fight Club Challenge _by director_ Zenzao _, with executive producer_ Peace _..._

* * *

_**Cursebreaking Hamunaptra**_  
Act II - Contract of Blood

* * *

Footsteps bounced back in double step, the echoes magnified by how closely pressed both wizard and hedgewitch were by the narrow walls underneath the bank. Even so Bill lead her on steadily, the path familiar by rote, and he turned his head over his left shoulder to say, "Remember to mind your gaze as much as your tongue, ma'am. My employers have been known to _gouge_ , in both notions of the term, for little less than full respect."

Miss Carnahan met his single visible eye and tried to measure the honesty of that rather dreadful statement. She was disheartened to see his vision remain steady the entire time, even as they wound around a sudden bend in the hall.

"I must confess that I do not find the thought of being gouged delightful, Mr. Weasley. I might hope you were simply jesting..."

Bill broke her gaze and their forward march by turning completely to stare at a particularly solid looking span of bedrock, much the same as all the rest passed thus far. "I've learned quite a few subjects on goblins that Hogwarts never got around to openly saying, ma'am. The average surface level employee may sneer at a wizard's- or witch's- lack of kindness, and tolerate indignity to a very measured point, but those this far down hold their posts for a very good, very grim, set of reasons. Don't insult _Igh'hre_ -" he made a sound like a choking cat partially submerged, one that she doubted she could ever imitate no matter how hard she practiced, "-or _my_ head is going to roll before your own; one of my duties is to educate potential clients before a meeting."

"Goodness, why ever do you stay here then if your life is so easily put at risk?" Her expression reflected the spark of anxiety coiling up inside of her, waiting to go off with a bang.

_I don't doubt we'll see something then_ , he thought, glancing from the corner of his eye.

He reached up, flicked his dragon fang earring, and gestured at the old, not-quite-faded scar running across his face. "You could say I've had some experience with danger." She had been avoiding staring, but the faint light in the cool tunnels illuminated the ravaged path of a pre-transformed werewolf's assault, the thin gap across his brow, the bridge of his nose, and now she could not help but look. He grimaced with remembrance. _The more things change_. The memory remained bittersweet twice over; firstly for the assault, and secondly for drawing Fleur into his life as his would-be wife. He pushed on before he could be drawn back to darker alleys in his head.

"But mostly, it's because of my younger brothers. Charlie's the dragon tamer; Ron's best friends and dueling partners with the Boy-who-lived-again. Call me crazy, miss Carnahan, but I'm not about to be outshone by those two berks!" His grimace stretched upward wildly, perhaps, she thought, even ferally, as he smiled, and he added, "Cursebreaking is my one true devotion. And just maybe, if you make a mess of this, I can stall long enough for _Igh'hre_ -" again that ghastly sound, "-to calm down. Now mind your manners and let me lay the outline, please!"

She sniffed primly with a suspicion taking shape in her head and set her hands across her hips, a sour quirk to her mouth.

"Is this a... a _game_ you're on about?"

Bill kept his awful grin in place. "They do say Cursebreaking takes a certain madness, ma'am." Then he drew a rugged, carved-stone key from one of those tiny pouches extracted from his desk so hypnotically and began to slash it above the surface of the wall. "What-" she got no more out but that before thin vertices of light, hitherto latticework, unfolded and gnawed a sunken hole into the wall.

"Remember," he warned, and ducked inside.

" _Ooooh_ , I hate it when men act so childishly! Completely reckless!" Striding after him with barely a dip in her posture, resisting the urge to hug herself lest she come into contact with the unnatural opening around her, she emerged into a subterranean vault of dank glory gone to rot.

Dry lanterns burned red from an anchor in the far wall. The pallor they cast set the tone for what they illuminated, a small hoard of gems sitting atop of and occasionally buried inside of moldering stacks of paperwork everywhere, old charts yellowed with dust decades in the making, a desk of dark ivory that too resembled bone for her taste against the far wall.

Then her gaze panned down as her escort began to settle to the messy floor Indian style, and quiet shock rooted her to the spot. _Oh Atem_. Seated in the midst of such entropy was a blackened corpse. To her sudden horror she understood that he was speaking to the rotten body- and it was speaking back, in that same choking, almost wheezing, half-under water grumble. Then one sunken wrinkle twitched and withdrew upward enough to expose a shrunken black pupil. Brown teeth spread from the gash in its face making up the mouth and a bark of unpleasant language followed.

"The map."

When she did not enter, did not in fact respond, Bill reached back without looking and gestured, then grabbed for her reluctant wrist while all she could do was stare, and pulled her in. Then he drew her down to his side, almost in a heap, and helped her sit upright even as he rooted through her purse for the item in question.

That finally snapped her out of her daze and she focused down, rather than upon the… goblin… that looked as old as some of the recent mummies excavated. Her tongue remained glued to the roof of her mouth when she tried to say something. Unbeknownst to her, he had silently applied a _langlock_ as his supporting hand retreated behind his back for a moment.

He laid the map out and spread it open. Igh'rhe crooned. He murred in return and once more they took to that unintelligible choking. She could do nothing more than watch. After a handful of minutes Bill offered his hand out, palm up, and the decrepit goblin spoke again, giving some sort of approval, for Bill then extended his reach over to a stack of papers between them and rooted around momentarily. At last he drew forth a dark, scaly feather, the nib of which terminated on a needle's wicked tip, and accepting the map itself as the contract for which they would sign, he turned the aged parchment over to scrawl in short, concise loops.

_What am I getting myself into_? She wondered, shivering. At first nothing happened. Then she would have gasped had she been free to, for lines of red bled, _literally bled_ , to the surface where he had passed. Duplicate marks decorated the back of his hand. He did not flinch. Partway through he passed the awful thing to her. "Sign your name, please. I've set things out fairly for both parties."

Pleading doe-eyes looked up into his own. He felt the urge to comfort her, for she so clearly sought comfort in that moment, and he could not give it to her before Igh'hre. _Read it_ , he mouthed instead. Her head turned down. She did. It was not easy, but she did. He had not lied- the terms were more than fair for her and the bank, and he had not included himself as anything other than a member of the bank, earning the salary he typically earned, as plainly stated- a salary that was not conveyed in numbers. Her shaking hand scrawled her name.

Then he took it back from her and passed the calcified feather to the ancient creature across from them, who in turn leaned forward to accept, and scrawl its own name. The blood that welled up on the back of the map appeared thin, yet so dark as to appear to be actual ink, and when it was through the eye closed and the mouth shut, and the goblin leaned back in rest.

In a matter of hours, the two of them were packed up and emerging from a fireplace on another continent, an area far more familiar to Miss Carnahan, despite her dismay. Two nights later saw them in the desert.

* * *

Midnight on an Egyptian sea, waves of white dust gliding beneath the cold breeze of a bright, cloudless night. Stars blazed a trail for the camel riders and their orcish company making a languid pace across those dunes, a chart sailors had been reading for three thousand years and more. Rays of spun silver bobbed across the puffing sand and the huffing mounts at labor.

"Tell me more about this Hogwarts you have hinted at so fervently, Mr. Weasley." The relationship between they two had been tentatively recovering from their meeting with his superior. She still could not pronounce the impossible name, and she had no desire to succeed.

Minutes trickled by tirelessly before he answered. " _Wonder_. If I could sum up my school years in a word, wonder." Bill leaned over the ragged edge of his carpeted rig, swaying moodily by ropes. "The professors knew how to teach not just the textbook lesson, but the principles behind it, that defined it. I haven't learned everything that I know from them, but rather _because_ of them." He leaned back beneath the shuffling canopy and closed his eyes. "I'm the man I am today due to Hogwarts. And Professor Albus Dumbledore most of all." And he began to hum, a quiet tune of Gaelic origin, rolling his index fingers through the air, and faded gray motes of fire were conjured overhead, _banshee fyre_ , or _ghost wick_.

Miss Carnahan trotted her camel closer. Her soft lips shaped into that always pleasing 'o' of surprise, he noted through half-lids, and Bill smiled around his hum to slow his conducting so the illusional kindling held just a little longer. When the song was done he sat upright and looked ahead to the moon glistening above another slope. "I'll always be in Hogwarts in one way or the other, to the day this job finally takes my life at the ripe old age of a hundred and fifty-six." He paused to laugh at himself, adding, "Might finally have earned a chocolate frog card by then, though you wouldn't know much about those, I suppose."

Her inquiring gaze grew sharper in suspicion, another trait he knew well. "I have not had the acquaintance of such a term, no," she confirmed.

Bill nodded. "Best to leave that alone until after we get back to London." He laid back and stared out into the quiet night.

"Must you do that once more? Tease a... a common facet of this society of sorcery and conjuring and _goblins_! As if I _should_ know _exactly_ what you mean!" She urged her camel to a hard trot, taking the lead away ere he could answer her.

_And this is why Fleur could never be satisfied. I just can't help but drift like the wind through things of this nature._

Bill let her keep a safe distance ahead. _It's better this way. She's almost a squib, and I live a dangerous life. Our world may very well be too much for her to handle_. He hummed a Norwegian lullaby to distract him, of Yggdrasil's roots sheltering the last man and woman alive come the winters of Ragnarok. His dragon fang earring hummed along, however, and fed a much different tune into his head; the translated whisperings of treachery from the foreign goblins at his back.

**...end of Act II.**

* * *

**A/N:** Been a while, hasn't it? Well, I'm finally getting this going again! As we have seen, Bill has a talent for what I am calling rhythm magic, in addition to the other little surprises in store. We'll be seeing some things I hope are original. There have also been slight clues to the different, wider world beyond just Bill and Evie, that may tie into an Auror Potter premise elsewhere. I fully intend for the third act to close in at 3k words, if not 4k, otherwise I may have to extend the chapter count a little.

I've also finally settled the first section of Last Dragonrider's third chapter. We have two scenes remaining before I'll have the whole chapter ready to upload in a month or so. Thank you for your time.


	3. A whiff of betrayal

 

Dark Lord Publishing studios _proudly presents, a continued_ Fight Club Challenge _by director_ Zenzao _, with executive producer_ Peace _..._

* * *

_**Cursebreaking Hamunaptra**_  
Act III - A whiff of betrayal

* * *

They made camp some several hours onward as the lengthening morning rays outpaced the languid mounts of men and goblins. Bill would have preferred to slog onward with a kip of Pepperup to purge his wearies and a chaser of Inuit Hail to soften the ungodly heat soon to follow, but it had been made clear when they set out the conditions to which the goblins and their ilk would ride; direct sunlight would burn the leathery beasts of burden alive.

As Bill slid off of his camel's back and tugged at the ropes holding his elaborate rig in place he kept his ear perked toward their muttering. Behind his back the seditious employees were pouring some strange purple ichor across the sands from the mouth of a tiny black teapot, raising a stranger fog that smelled of tar around the snorting orcneas fidgeting in place. He scrunched up his nose and tried not to gag as a gust of wind spread the scent in his direction. Nevertheless he couldn't dally forever, and with little more understanding than he had already gleaned beneath the stars, Bill folded the straps and rugs and wood up into a roll and carried his rig across the back of his shoulders as he made for Miss Carnahan and the rising sun rather gladly.

"What are they doing?" she inquired as soon as he was near. Apparently their disagreement over his habits had cooled during the ride.

Bill dropped his rig to the sand and shrugged, rolling his taut muscles. "Warding, in their own way." She gave him another one of those looks and he clarified, "A barrier against the sunlight. Now, I don't suppose you've had much to eat since we set out yesterday evening, and we need to establish a sturdy tent before much longer."

The spark of fire redoubled in her gaze. "' _A_ tent'?" she challenged. "If you think I am going to snuggle up to your side, Mr. Weasley, you are sadly mistaken."

He quickly intervened before she built up any more steam. "Trust me, ma'am, one wizard's tent will have enough rooms to keep us good and separate." He dug out a bulky napkin from his jeans pocket, a crude and eye-searingly loud orange, and knelt to unfold it. She did not share his enthusiasm, not at first, but the more he unwound the little cloth the greater it grew in size, spanning more than a meter in just seconds. In under a minute he stepped back from an arching tent as tall as he and just as wide as their camels meandering nearby.

"Ladies first."

He gestured her in with a hand on the opening, pulling back the thick fold. Miss Carnahan peered in warily. The next moment she made a little noise of delight mixed with wonder in the back of her throat that did very interesting things for his libido, though he squashed the initial stirring before it bloomed into something harder to wrangle under control.

"As I said, ma'am, more than enough rooms, and all the comforts I pegged you for needing, full bedroom and bath, stocked kitchen, even a small library next to the common room to help with your inquiries. Unfortunately no wireless seems to pick up a signal where we'll be going in the weeks ahead, if my experiences in deserts and old magic are anything to go by."

He let her enter and stepped back, fiddling with his satchel of ropes dumped carelessly to the sand. While far more simple he had no need to enjoy the luxury or accommodations of a team-class dwelling. She poked her head back out to stare at him with a good deal less animosity. "Aren't you coming in?" she asked.

"No ma'am. Wouldn't want the crew to get suspicious," he said good-naturedly. Then he tugged a rope end and his workman's tent began compiling like a set of dominoes falling into place, popping into position at knee-height. Unlike her own, his truly was a simple thing, only a little wider within than the size without. He shrugged his way in and sighed when his head met the make-due pillow of a rolled up rug.

He heard her footsteps coming around the end and then she was kneeling by his boots and looking at him incredulously. "Surely you cannot be comfortable in that, Mr. Weasley."

He yawned behind one hand. "If I worried about comfort, Miss Carnahan, I wouldn't be a curse breaker. Don't forget to zip the opening before you turn in. Good morning." He tucked his feet in and toed the opening closed before her nose, letting his mind drift to a place of quiet contemplation.

"Ooh!" Her protest brought a rough grin to his lips.

* * *

Their journey ticked by on the calendars kept by Bill and the leading goblin, Cthukuk, who finally deigned to speak with him on the eighth night. Unfortunately for them both, that happened to be the point by which he'd put together a reasonable understanding of where and when his life, and by association Miss Carnahan's, would be forfeit; when they finally closed toward her fabled Hamunaptra. And the stars in conjunction with the analysis of her map were leading them fairly true.

"We are nearing, wizard."

Cthukuk's voice in English felt as comforting as a Banshee's opening wail. Given his run in with two over the course of his life to date, and Fleur in full-on Veela wrath did not count, Bill resisted the urge to wince with a surprising degree of success.

"I was beginning to think the same," he answered obliquely.

Cthukuk gave him no other warning. No sinister, premeditated chuckle. No whistle to coordinate with the others nearby. Not even the swish of a hitherto-concealed dagger rising from the folds of a thrown-back cloak. The goblin simply pointed and the rune-encrusted rings around his swollen index finger spat a wave of invisible force against the body of Hannibal, his camel.

Bill had known to expect _something_ , but kinetic energy was not one of the areas he had prepared for. Hannibal went down in an explosion of blood and fur, sending Bill himself into a headlong tumble that he barely turned into a halted roll back toward his beloved mount for a fraction of protection.

Nearby Miss Carnahan screamed. The other goblins split their numbers, two more encircling his position to flank him, the remainder going after her. In an instant a sense of protective duty reared up inside of his admittedly shaken head.

_Bugger this!_

A thin brass flute materialized in Bill's right hand, loosened from the holster around his upper arm. There was barely enough time to raise it to his lips, and even before he made contact with the tip he was breathing out in a seemingly nonsensical rush. The first silver rings surrounding him hummed as a volley of force raced forward, throwing bits of camel and desert sands skyward. Then a piercing wail rose up on the wind from every corner at once, a tone of deafening, all-pervading volume that burrowed into the ears and set up an amphitheater with no way out. The goblins by instinctive nature snarled in Gobbledygook and clapped their burnished fingers against their ears, while beneath them the orcneas bellowed as if being slaughtered, thrashing their leathery heads from side to side; thick spurts of metallic green blood splashed across the desert floor. Gone insensate with pain the mad mounts charged head-long into each other, crazed with agony.

Bill screwed up his eyes against the actual Banshee shriek threatening to drive him equally as daft and changed tunes on the fly, somehow finding his feet for long enough to back away before could be trampled, quickly piping out a soft melody not far removed from the hypnotic glaze of Mumbai snake charmers. Something of the wail echoing inside of his head resolved, put to sleep. He stumbled drunkenly away in time to avoid another dosage of destructive force that sent sand jettisoning all around.

Cthukuk rose from where he'd successfully leaped from his orcneas' back and leveled his index finger again with a bitter grimace. A nasty gurgle preceded a muted flash as every ring at once piled on and began to charge. _Uh-oh._ Bill recognized stacking. Then he took note of the watery blood leaking from his enemy's ears. The goblin's expression lit up with cruel delight now that there was nothing to hide, and little that Bill could do on such short notice to hamper the assassination again.

Bill lowered the flute from his mouth. He held it tightly in his hand, watching as his doom approached. Just before Cthukuk released the lethal charge, the traitor reached up to his throat and drew back the fine black cloth, exposing in the pre-dawn glow some intricate tattoo, and uttered another word in English. "Medjai."

_I have no idea what that means,_ Bill thought, even as he whistled one last note. A single, sharp note. Cthukuk's gathering power launched forward with sufficient oomph as to catapult the goblin backwards and sear a path underneath the kinetic load. In response his flute belched a dose of rich ivory-blue dragon-ice courtesy the last of the Croatian Carcholtog's, a stream thirty feet long and half as wide of nebulous energy just waiting for a catalyst.

For a beat when opposing forces met, nothing happened. Then all at once Bill was thrown back by the crackling explosion like a ragdoll. He soared farther and faster than any broom he'd ever ridden on before, accompanied by an asteroid field of jagged debris like the world's worst gathering of bludgers. A pained laugh bubbled up from deep down in his aching gut as he spun end over end, struggling to right himself, and he thought, _This is why I love this job._ _No end of death and dismemberment on a daily basis._

Somewhere below as he straightened his head, he caught a glimpse of Miss Carnahan and her camel storming down a dune with two more orcneas hot on her heels. At least the goblins riding so close behind carried stunted swords instead of more rune-rings, or else the hedgewitch would have been dead by now. He checked his hands and found, unsurprisingly, that the flute had vanished again, though a brief pat down of his arms confirmed that the sympathetic charms in place had safely stowed it again in the holster up his sleeve. _Small miracles, thank Merlin._ Gravity began to reassert its natural dominance after another few moments, and his velocity and height gradually tapered off, sending the cursebreaker on a sudden and exhilarating descent toward just the people he wanted to see.

The nearest goblin looked up at the sudden shadow and faint whoosh as Bill fell. Comical alarm lit up its eyes and drew the mouth into a sharp scowl of surprise. The short-sword rose a second too late to do anything more than nick his jeans as Bill gave a mental-shrug and pulled up a weakened shield charm just before impact, and as they tumbled to the ground the goblin's companion was butchered by the aforementioned field of ice. What became of the orcneas' resembled something out of an underground processing factory minus the OSHA and Green Peace standards.

"Ow." His shield charm cracked down the middle and disintegrated, leaving him laying atop the last of the traitors nearby with a broken sword digging into his ribs. He wheezed to get air back into his lungs and winced as the jagged piece of blade gouged into his side. "I think... that should do it, for today." Bill dug the weapon out and slapped a hand to the resultant oozing wound.

Ahead, as his gaze began to darken, he made note of Miss Carnahan coming to a reluctant halt and peering over her shoulder through a tangle of frizzy hair. His last thought before he blacked out was that she looked remarkably beautiful in the moment with the rays of dawn framing her face.

**...end of Act III.**

* * *

A/N: Hi folks. Bit shorter than I'd intended, so we'll be getting a few more chapters than initially planned.

While I was wondering over what to call the creatures the goblins were riding, as I'd already alluded to the term 'orcish' previously, I managed to find 'orcneas' on wikipedia and the rough translation to 'evil spirits' felt fitting. I picture them used more underground for the purposes of hauling loads in the mines than for desert fare in most conditions, adding to the intended betrayal from the onset by Cthukuk. Bill's flute is a reference to the dragon-fire spewing device used by John Constantine in the 2004 film and I've got some minor but interesting backstory for how Bill acquired this variant as well as how it operates. Hope the wait was worth it, thank you for reading. And of course the rings are straight out of Dresden Files lore.


	4. Broken vows and poultices

Dark Lord Publishing studios _proudly presents, a continued_ Fight Club Challenge _by director_ Zenzao _, with executive producer_ Peace _..._

* * *

 _ **Cursebreaking Hamunaptra**_  
Act IV- Broken vows and poultices

* * *

 _Bill looked up from the forms his wife -_ ex-wife _, he thought numbly - had placed into his hands as he came down from their bedroom in Shell Cottage moments ago. It had not taken him long to recognize the contract that they had signed only a year past, a contract every witch and wizard who felt a love as fierce as theirs found a way to sign, an affirmation that they were willing to live and, yes, die together, to endure good and ill-will in turns, to endure when the world pushed against them and push back twice as hard._

 _Beneath the vows they had exchanged ran a much different set of terms, a warning that he had never expected to heed, even in the wake of their darkest rows when he returned late from a trip, scorched and weary, to find her deep into a wineglass of_ Aesop's Nectar _and furious, aching in ways only that wine could draw out._

_The lower clauses had been signed in her neat, flowery script. In blood. His eyes swelled with unshed tears and his heart hammered against his rib cage as he met her sad, knowing stare._

_"It iz not working, William. I 'ave tried, and you 'ave tried. But I am not fit for ziz... ziz housewife, ziz gardening and sewing and waiting life, zat your British witches endure." Her accent that he so adored now turned, filled with her determination that they be done with. She looked away to the window, and the sea waves breaking beneath the cliff their house overlooked. "I was once a great woman, William. Now what am I? A neglected icon of station."_

_He opened his mouth to respond, to tell her otherwise, but the last clause had been written_ in blood _. She was resolved to this dissolution. She had marked it with surety, without consulting him, without making any great attempt to work out what could have been changed, just a thousand soft murmurs across the nights._

_"Please sign."_

_He walked forward as if under the Imperius Curse, a dream-like disconnect making his motions smooth instead of jerky. On the table sat the quill that she had used, and with a pang of deeper heartbreak he recognized the effort that she had put into finalizing their conclusion as husband and wife; he had often stroked such feathers to sooth her in her anguish, when they fought, dueled, and forgave each other for words that said more than intended and implied worse. He set the contract down and scribbled his name, and the brief, fleeting pain that burned across the back of his hand was nothing to the pain that threatened to consume him from the inside-out in that moment._

_She had watched him. Now she walked around, and taking the nullification of their wedding and vows into a hand that bore her name etched in faint, fading lettering over the back, she whispered her formal goodbye. "What we 'ad was not true love, William, but burning, fleeting passion, as my mother forewarned." There was sadness in her voice that failed to match the expression on her face. He could say nothing that mattered to that, and she did not wait long, but brushed a hand across his ginger hair and was then out of the kitchen and out of the hall, the door to their - soon to be decided as either his or hers by the courts - home._

How did it come to this? _Bill silently asked her vacate seat._ How did I let it get this far along?

 _He had no answer_ , _then_ , _or_ now... when a burning pain in his side drew him up out of the poison-induced dream of one of his lowest moments and into reality again with the hot desert sun pounding around his body.

Miss Carnahan sat off to his right, a crackling fire laid out before her with half-empty vials of delightfully glittering liquids in differing states of boil. On the sands between them she had laid out a spare shirt of hers on which various tinctures sat next to discarded herbs, insects, and silver knives, and the pack in which she had retrieved her ingredients. He also noted a discarded flask of the sort that Alastor Moody was infamous for carrying everywhere he'd traveled.

On his left, a bulge in the sands lay covered up by another few shirts. He could guess that it was the remains of the goblins, and if the sun had left anything behind than most likely their mounts, too.

 _How long have I been out of things?_ Bill wondered. He tried to move, to run his hand against the wavering pain at his side, and could not stifle a groan as he pulled on slit muscles and flesh and incensed more heat to burn.

Miss Carnahan looked up at him with a gasp, "Oh!" She scrambled to her hands and knees and over to his side. "Tell me how you're feeling! I wasn't sure what exactly to treat you with at first, Mister Bey never let me work with poisons very often after I accidentally killed the whole pack of mice a few years ago, but I'm sure that this-" and she held up the broken short-sword of the goblin that he had crushed to death and passed it around near his nose once or twice before it fell away to land blade-first in the sand, "- is a type of poison he spoke to me about at very great length and that would need all of the ingredients I have lined up in my medical kit, thank Horus, yes, and why aren't you saying anything Mister Weasley?"

Once her whirlwind of words paused Bill smiled, though his lips may have angled more toward a grimace at the corners, and he laid back his head against the moderately cool sands in his shadow and said, "I knew you had to have some talent for magic, Miss Carnahan. Potioneer and Herbologist, of course." At her puzzled expression he decided not to clarify- perhaps they used other terms, this Mister Bey at whatever school she'd learned at, though why she would not make the connection he couldn't fathom- and added, "Yes, I'm feeling better." Which was more-or-less true. Whatever gunk the goblins had treated their weaponry with was being fought off by the tinctures and brews she had applied to his side. He craned his neck over to gaze down at a rough patch of gauze plastered against his side, where lay the source of the mild _Incendio_ chewing into his body.

She clapped her hands together delightedly and said, " _Oh_ , wonderful, I knew, I _knew_ that I'd recognized the poison - _Scarab's Pincer_ \- and it worked!" She scampered back over to her fire. Something about her enthusiasm coupled with her movements caught his eye, and while he momentarily appreciated her swaying derrière, the rational part of his mind began pointing out that she appeared off-balance. She broke out into humming to herself a rough rendition of the very tune he'd done over a week ago when explaining about Hogwarts and his education, and though he _could_ see the young hedgewitch as simply being happy in her element, he looked over to the flask with a rather less charitable idea stirring.

He bit his tongue to keep from swearing as he sat up and reached over, long arm snatching up the discarded silver. It took him a few measured breaths to sit upright, and as he laid there under the burning sun Bill thought, _I'm going to have a few carefully placed words with Igh'hre on my expendability if we survive this venture_.

He raised the flask and took a whiff off the open end. _Bugger_. That confirmed it - until that moment he had not smelt the aroma of whatever liquor she fancied, but he recognized inebriation in a bottle as well as the next cursebreaker.

"Miss Carnahan."

She looked over a shoulder at him from where she remained on all fours, adjusting the set of vials with silver tongs. Her hair fell into her eyes almost at once and she giggled. "Mister Weasley?"

He sighed. "Have you... had a drink yet?" It was five o'clock somewhere, he reasoned. Given her interchangeable timidity and fierce response, he figured it wouldn't be unlikely that she'd needed reassurance, and he hadn't exactly been conscious to encourage her though patching up his infection.

That'd she taken the initiative in the first place mattered.

She puffed at the obscuring strands of hair for long moments before she answered him. "Well, yes, I feared I might need something to sooth my nerves when we set out so long ago, this has been oh so different, Mister Weasley, and when those terrible g... _goblins_ turned on us..." she trailed off abruptly and, for the second time in minutes, Bill was reminded that he just had no way with women.

"It's fine, I understand," he said when she held onto her silence, feigning a smile. She hiccuped and returned to examining her potions, leaving him to sigh and look toward what was in store for them now.

 _I may have bought us these past few hours_ \- he raised a hand and squinted toward the sun, looking around to get his bearings - _but sooner or later the remainder of the expedition crew will turn up_. _They'll be ready for my flute then_. Down inside, where that not-so-little part of him welcomed the thrill of adversity, he felt like smiling. But the reality around them was that he couldn't afford to indulge his urges. He'd been lucky to have overheard as much of their plans as he had, and prepared accordingly, and they still almost killed he and Miss Carnahan. _I'm going to have to step it up from here on out._

* * *

Ponderous clouds rolled across the horizon as evening bled into an early night, and with them came the heavy rumble of closing thunder, a stark contrast to the whispering of gobbledygook from a delirious warrior on his final moments. The fortress of Cthukuk's mind had found itself besieged by the mortal foes of frostbite beneath the black cloak that hung to his desiccated form, sunburn where his darkened skin lay open to the mercies of the heavens, and underneath it all blood loss in the wake of his encounter with Bill Weasley. What threads of sanity remained now clung desperately to his duty as the shawl of madness and the specter of death loomed nearer with every rambling breath.

With his pulse weakening, and left behind by order of his second-in-command hours ago that Cthukuk must suffer this journey without their aid, he whispered for obedience from a caste of creatures long abandoned to come once more at the call of the Medjai.

And in time as the rain fell ever closer to his enfeebled position, what slept beneath in hollowed nests began to waken to his cries. Three surly, starving _things_ burrowed upward and hesitated just shy of breaching the surface, catching the scent of rain, decay, and most importantly tangy, fresh meat nearby, that tantalizing smell of charred orcneas. Ignoring the smaller Cthukuk then they raced across to where his mount lay hobbled and dead, seared in the morning rays so that rider and mount should die together as they had lived together.

The orcneas' body lurched as something caught at it from underneath and shook relentlessly. For a beat thick fangs brushed over the toughed belly, gouging yet not sticking, until at last they burst through with a sickening squelch. At once the orcneas' corpse rolled in the sands and a glimpse of the creature responsible, six elongated limbs clinging from throat to hip on the leathery mount, furry skin dark tan in contrast to that murky gray and black hide, flashed under the lightning.

Then it, and it's companions, sank back down to the nest, rustling and jostling for place of honor for this feast after a generation withering to dust.

Nearly a minute passed before only one of the gaunt creatures returned to the surface, pincers clicking irately, and in broken Egyptian a muffled voice asked, "What do you want of us, stone-spawn?"

The dying Medjai's cloudy eye rolled from side to side across that awful mouth, a sharp spike of anxiety reaching out of the veil of confusion to plead with what was left of his senses to flee. His duty would not allow anything more than his lips and tongue and throat to undulate a feeble response.

That same broken voice answered, "That is agreeable." And then the speaker burst out of the sand and sank two gargantuan fangs into Cthukuk's chest, and his one eye stared directly into six glittering orbs as black as the storm clouds overhead and far more malevolent in intent. That same squelching sound followed as digesting acids were pumped into the body, and within a few beats of the goblin's melting heart his innards were a slurry of succulence. The next moment the Camelus Acromantula sucked dead Cthukuk dry, and dragged his waxy form down that its brethren would dine on the softening bones. When they had supped at long last, they would honor the agreement - and eat well once more.

In the distance, a lone camel rider watched the sacrificial ceremony and the subsequent reenactment of an old and foul contract come to a close and tutted to the falcon perched upon his arm.

* * *

Rain pattered across his tent with a rhythmic regularity that was comforting after the stresses of the day now turned to night. _Hard enchanting_ , Bill thought with the tone of a bruised Chaser bemoaning the necessity of Bludgers in a Quidditch match. He stifled a tremendous yawn behind his hand which turned into a groan as he tugged on the puckered wound beneath the third set of herbs Miss Carnahan had applied, shortly after dusk to keep to an even schedule. Fortunately, what work as remained to him now was of the tongue, and if there was one thing Bill prided himself on, it was his inheritance of languages.

Unknowingly echoing a dying Medjai's inflection, the cursebreaker recited the charms that would alert him should gobbledygook be spoken within a fifty-meter radius. At once he felt a soft _ping_ of awareness as he laid on two other options, being Egyptian and a rough sort of pseudo-language, a crossbreed more apt to pig gook than proper gobbledygook, the guttural uttering found primarily around the slums of the goblin fiefdoms instead of their major clan divisions. He was hardly fluent, though what he had acquired during his internship would have made his mother faint, to say nothing of Miss Carnahan. When he had finished Bill breathed a sigh of exhaustion.

 _Now how much longer can we expect this break to last before they rally a second attempt?_ In all likelihood, the contract was responsible for the delay at this point. Hamunaptra sat only another day or two away according to his - and their - estimates of the map and stars, and that proximity meant loopholes to be exploited; the goblins could afford to wait and think before they struck again. _Even so, they've left us completely alone. Why?_ That one question kept him occupied until a disturbance in the cadence of the rain nearby tugged at his dragon-fang earring.

Tremors. No words, but a sort of click-click-clicking that was unintelligible as anything other than implicit, intuitive understanding to whatever was making the noise. There really weren't that many creatures in the desert that relied on such tactics of communication, and the few which sprang to mind now did not account for the size of the discordance registering.

 _What in the hell did they send after us?_ Bill kicked at the hitches of his tent below, ignoring the bellow of agony that surged across his kidneys and lower ribs as he threatened to tear away the leaves, and rolled upright at once, one hand pushing the obstructing material aside as the other came up to shield his eyes against the surging rain. Over the rising dune before which Miss Carnahan dozed blissfully unaware on the sandman's barge in her larger tent, he caught a glance of three bulges making rapid work of the distance.

**...end of Act IV.**

* * *

A/N: Figured this was as good a breaking point as any for now as I keep stalling over rewriting the subsequent encounter. Can a wounded Bill pull some new tricks - or will his efforts, 'hard enchanting' geared toward goblin foes - come to naught?


End file.
